Authority Issues

Authority Issues

By Rachel Perkins and Kendall MillerBusinessCareersManagement
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Authority Issues episodes

  • Episode 40: Aimee Cardwell (recently of American Express)

    In this episode, Kendall, rachel, and Aimee talk about:

    • Dropping out of high school/not having a university degree
    • The major importance of learning to type early on
    • Loving the first taste of authority, building her own team
    • Learning that people don't want to talk to sales if they can shop online
    • Why the pop-up window is (technically) her fault :shaking-fist:
    • Experiencing classic sexism from Japanese executives
    • The fallout of the first dot com crash and taking a major step back careerwise
    • Trusting your friends to tell you if you're being an asshole
    • Learning how to frame recommendations for improvement without alienating people by telling them their baby is ugly
    • Checking intentions for and expectations from going into management
    • Recommendation for the book Performance Breakthrough by Cathy Rose Salit
    • What 'visibility' means, and why you don't need someone to tell you to get it
    • Authority's effect, and cultural differences in responses to it
    • Watching this talk every quarter for inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqmdLcyES_Q
    • How leaders should be the calmest person in the room and how meditation (including via cooking) has helped
    • Trying on "leader onesies" to help decide how to respond in various situations

      • You can reach Aimee on LinkedIn as "acardwell" and find her blog post about here:

      https://americanexpress.io/visibility/

      Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

      52 min
    • Episode 39: Linda Lannen (Kleinfelder)

      In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Linda talk about:

      • Not having a career plan at 17, starting with community college
      • The value of getting an MBA, broadening of perspective
      • Looking for more 'worthy' occupations as one's career winds up
      • Stints at Oscar Meyer and Jolly Rancher, bad jokes about each :)
      • Moving toward technology via technical indexing and writing gigs
      • Stepping up to own a Lotus Notes install when the IT director quit
      • Working at Home Depot during the first dot-com bust
      • Thinking she was not technical enough to be a CIO
      • A day in the life of the CIO at a large corporation
      • How many people want to feel their work drives something worthwhile
      • The tendency of leaders to overlook reward vs discipline
      • Decompression via travel and time off

        • You can find Linda on LinkedIn as lindalannen :)

        Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

        49 min
      • Episode 38: Unmesh Kurup (LG Electronics)

        In this episode, Kendall, rachel, and Unmesh talk about:

        • The role of luck and timing in one's career path
        • Avoiding the dot com bust by staying in grad school
        • Changing yourself vs expecting your team to change
        • How managing/directing/coaching employees coming from academia is different
        • Why turnover can be desirable (SUPER interesting!)
        • The downside of having an extremely good manager (also SUPER interesting!)
        • Concensus-building as a safety mechanism (thanks, Kendall ;) )
        • Being the youngest sibling and how that influenced his path
        • Not liking to be told what to do
        • Autonomous cars, coming sooner than at least I thought
        • How leadership has made Unmesh more decisive in his personal life
        • Meeting people via swing dancing

          • You can find Unmesh on LinkedIn as unmeshkurup :)

          Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

          43 min
        • Episode 37: Ellen Mary Hickman (Turing School of Software & Design)

          In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Ellen Mary talk about:

          • Group dynamics and being a younger sibling
          • Leadership in a classroom of 4th graders
          • Self care when there are no filters on what your students say and do
          • Moving into teaching reform work
          • The role of process and where it isn't enough
          • Being uncomfortable and why you had better get used to it
          • Identifying the "language of value" for your audience
          • Wearing many, MANY hats as a Senior Director
          • How managing and disciplining and firing teachers differs from other industries
          • Why an effective hiring process is crucial because of the above
          • How leadership in the classroom is different from just giving a lecture
          • Setting up a team to support addressing conflicts
          • How real leaders shouldn't need to 'wield' authority

            • You can find Ellen Mary on LinkedIn as emhickmann :)

            Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

            49 min
          • Episode 36: April Underwood (#Angels)

            In this episode, Kendall, rachel, and April talk about:

            • A path into tech via baseball card database management and gpa optimization scripts
            • Detouring around a chem-eng career and hard-hat avoidance
            • TECH SUPPORT SHENANIGANS and getting away from campus to make websites
            • Graduating into the cataclysm of the first dot-com bust and heading to Intel
            • Early failures in operational scaling leading to product management
            • Taking a side-trip to get an MBA and ending up at Google
            • The leadership value of having worn many hats (or hard-hats ;))
            • Advice for those wanting to get into product management
            • A first official management role at Twitter
            • The "academic" culture of Google vs the "business" culture of Twitter
            • How hiring experience translates to investment decisionmaking
            • Consideration of company culture in the context of investment
            • Taking risks in the interest of a better future
            • Missing the major growth experience at Slack
            • The mindblowing feeling of having your team be multipliers for achieving your goals
            • The responsibility you have to the people who are choosing to work for you
            • Hiking goals

              • You can find April on Twitter at @aunder :)

              Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

              54 min
            • Episode 35: Tina Huang (Transposit)

              In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Tina talk about:

              • Starting your own company to get a role in leadership :)
              • The fact that men are much more often picked/groomed for leadership within an org
                • (see https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/gender-equality/women-in-the-workplace-2018)
              • What it's like to learn how to lead on the job
              • Getting cross-functional experience at startups
              • Another recommendation for "Radical Candor"
              • Where leadership comes from at Apple vs Google and how that affects outcomes
              • Unconscious bias in different promotion review processes
              • Why it might be a good thing that we can't quantify absolutely everything people enjoy
              • Bringing pragmatism into technical decisionmaking that can sometimes feel like religious arguments
              • The role of vulnerability in disagreements
              • Why women are often better at building concensus and planning for outcomes in business
              • Developing an appreciation for Italian wines after growing up on Napa/Sonoma wines
              • A recommendation for Blair Fox winery's Syrah

                • You can find Tina on Twitter as @kmonkeyjam and she might find you on LinkedIn :)

                Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

                46 min
              • Episode 34: Mojtaba Hosseini (Nanometrics Seismic Monitoring Solutions)

                In this episode, Kendall, rachel, and Mojtaba talk about:

                • How to work the system: adjunct professorship, then at Samsung
                • Making friends and escaping the dungeon via forgery
                • Effectiveness vs butt-in-seat time, tactics for success
                • Noticing the missing component: people!
                • Kendall's understanding of what having a PhD means
                • A whole new world (of management theory and practice to study)
                • The need to adapt your leadership style
                • Managing healthy tensions
                • What servant leadership actually means
                • Whether people are actually kinder in Canada
                • Real Canadian Goals(tm)
                • The relief of living in the moment with small children

                  • You can find Mojtaba on LinkedIn :)

                  Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

                  49 min
                • Episode 33: Michael Lopp (Slack)

                  In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Michael talk about:

                  • Naming things (and people) is hard
                  • Getting into the Deep End early on
                  • The dearth of formal training for managers
                  • Lengthy tenures and what they imply
                  • Key strengths of a leader, and knowing how you rate in each
                  • What it's like to rely only on Slack to communicate at work
                  • His "you're a wizard, Harry!" moment
                  • Hating to tell people what to do, hating to have people tell you what to do
                  • The real definition of managing up
                  • Giving away your toys, the sign of growth in leadership
                  • Writing methodologies, and a CHILDREN'S BOOK?!
                  • How "gravelbiking" is apparently rad
                  • Memory exercises

                    • You can find Michael Lopp on the internet at http://randsinrepose.com and from thence all the news about twitter, upcoming books, and the like.

                    Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

                    52 min
                  • Episode 32: Lisa Smith (Spreedly)

                    In this episode, Kendall, rachel, and Lisa talk about:

                    • Not being librarian-y enough
                    • A night job turning news into jpgs
                    • Bleeding-edge social media experiments
                    • Forays into leadership (and friendships!) via brunching with Women Who Code
                    • The importance of good office snacks
                    • A good experience with a Lara Hogan workshop
                    • Practicing difficult interactions
                    • Tips for managing through change
                    • Improving one's game face
                    • How authority requires responsiveness
                    • The magic of recontextualizing failure

                      • You can find Lisa on the internet @lisadsmith on twitter

                      and on LinkedIn as /smithwebsmith :)

                      Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

                      45 min
                    • Episode 31: Elisa Hebert (Kenzan)

                      In this episode, rachel, Kendall, and Elisa talk about:

                      • A fairytale-like pastry shop origin story ;)
                      • Coming out and getting early experience of public speaking and leadership in a peer education program
                      • Getting a job by insisting on it repeatedly (a tried and true approach!)
                      • Being convinced to move into the for-profit world
                      • Unveiling the inner project manager who was there all along
                      • The recurring theme of accountability, and how not everyone feels it the way you do
                      • What it means to have a strong bias for action and how to temper it
                      • The benefits of 'showing the math'
                      • Bringing one's authentic self to work
                      • Further incidental evidence of the pay gap, :lolsob:
                      • Tips for managing up, the most underrated superpower
                      • Going deep, the hobby

                        • Special thanks to Mel Stanley for our theme music <3

                        49 min

                      About Authority Issues

                      From the publisher's feed

                      Welcome to Authority Issues, a podcast about leadership, management, and competitive prescription writing.